Panacea: Chapter One

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Vincent Prader was having a dream. It was a very good dream, featuring beautiful women and his own mansion overlooking the countryside, with servants at his every beck and call, and where every one of the damned members of the Chemical Philosophers Society was at his feet, apologizing for the way they had treated him, begging that he forgive them and join their group, they were so desperate to have him and his brilliant ideas, couldn’t he just reconsider?

Vincent was in the middle of telling them that of course he graciously accepted their apology, but he would have to think some more about joining the Society, when one of the members banged his fist on the floor where he was prostrated.

Vincent frowned in the man’s direction, and opened his mouth to say that he wondered if it wasn’t prudent that he should instead form his own Society, which would of course be highly selective but also recognizant of genius when it saw it, unlike some Societies he could name, when the banging came again. And again. Before long, the Society members were all banging against the floor; some with fists, some with their knees, others with their heads. Vincent would have found the whole thing terribly amusing if it wasn’t for the fact that it was his dream, and someone had intruded and now he’d lost control over it.

There was nothing to be done now but wake up.

He opened groggy eyes and flinched as the banging didn’t stop. Wonderful. Not only had he lost control of his dream, but it had been because there was some moron beating upon his front door at the entirely inhuman hour of—he looked at his clock—noon.

He laid his head back on his pillow. The bangs were now being punctuated with sharp cries of, “Open the door!” and Vincent wondered what could possibly be so important and whether it was worth his time to find out.

Then he heard another bang, only this one was from inside the house and quickly followed by a muffled curse, and he smiled. Good Danya, always looking out for him. She would find out what the rude people at the front door wanted.

He smiled wider as she yelled, “For Arrod’s sake, I was in the middle of an experiment!” from the other room.

Vincent thought for a moment, then called, “Thank you.”

“Go rot in the pits of the Underworld,” was the response.

Vincent frowned, but she did bring him lunch, and sometimes slept with him, so that counted for something. He would forgive her comment for now.

He heard the front door open and Danya converse with whoever was outside in low tones. He had just closed his eyes to resume his sleep and hopefully his dream, when Danya appeared at his bedroom door, looking cross.

“Get up,” she snarled, throwing his overcoat at him. “You’re wanted.”

“Who’s at the door?” He sat up, letting the overcoat slide to the floor. This had better be very important.

Danya got a funny look on her face and was silent for a moment, and Vincent opened his mouth to tell her to get on with it, but then she said, “It’s the Queensguard.”

This got Vincent out of bed and into his overcoat immediately. His very first reaction had been to scoff at her, and remind her that she really was quite terrible at sarcasm. But he had known her long enough to recognize the face she used when she was teasing, as it wasn’t far off from her normal expression. But this was something different, something more somber, and he knew she was telling the truth about who was at the door.

“Why do you suppose they’re here?” he asked as he jammed his feet into his slippers. The floor was cold.

She shrugged. “I don’t know, but it’s the Queensguard, so don’t you think you should wear something more appropriate?”

“If the Queen was with them, perhaps,” said Vincent with a snort. Actually, he probably wouldn’t, but now Danya had a new look on her face, one that Vincent had learned meant she was getting frustrated, so he chose not to say anything more. Bad things happened around the house when Danya got frustrated, not the least of which was her failure to bring him lunch on time.

He stood straighter and stretched, noting with a frown that the light coming through the lone window over his bed was gray and feeble-looking, which meant it was likely going to be a miserable day. Danya would want to keep the curtains shut in the lab all day today, and not because she was planning on doing strange and possibly illegal things with chemicals. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror hung on the wall across the room, and grimaced. He really ought to shave, or at least comb his hair, because it was the Queensguard no matter what he said to Danya, but then again, they had been the ones to disturb his much-needed sleep. It had been a long night.

“Sometime this year?” Danya said snidely.

“I don’t like being woken up,” he complained as he moved toward the door. “You know that.”

“The Queensguard don’t know that.”

“They should,” he grumbled.

The Queensguard was actually at the door, as Danya had said, two of them dressed in the traditional cream-colored uniform of the part of the ‘guard stationed permanently in the city. One of the ‘guards was tall and imposing, with thick black hair showing the first hints of gray at his temples and eyes the same steel-cold color as the rain, which Vincent now saw was falling hard and fast on the street outside his front door.

The other guard was female and shorter. She had tucked her hair beneath the cream-colored cap the Queensguard sometimes wore, but an errant wisp of blonde had escaped and was hanging behind her left ear. She was pretty in a sort of organic way, with blue eyes and a spattering of light freckles across her round face, and a countenance that told Vincent she had never even considered covering anything up with face paint. Not that he was judging her for that; Danya had already given him the lecture about airheaded women trying to create false beauty, and he quite agreed with that, mostly because it made her happy, and when Danya was happy good things happened around the house, not the least of which was her tendency to sneak into his bedroom late at night.

The female guard was also holding a large black umbrella, which looked ridiculous since she had it positioned so that she was the most protected and the man had to hunch a little to fit beneath it. Vincent had no porch on the front of his townhouse, nor even an overhang.

“Hello,” Vincent greeted them, more brightly than he felt and certainly more so than he would have been with any other guest. Except for maybe the Queen. Maybe. “Is there something I can help you with?”

A million possibilities had already flown through his head as to why they might be there, none of them bad. Certainly no one he knew had died; there would be no reason why the Queensguard would be sent to tell him, since he wasn’t exactly friendly with anyone in the palace. He had spent all of last night in the house and completely sober, so there couldn’t have been an incident. Danya had gone out, but she was far too practical to do something stupid, and far too sly to get caught.

“Are you--” the female guard pulled out a slightly soggy piece of paper and scanned it quickly, “—Vincent Prader?”

“Lord Vincent Prader,” he replied before he could stop himself. He felt a little ridiculous at that, but he did have a family crest even if he no longer had a family estate. He waved feebly toward the crest, prominently displayed above the fireplace mantel, to show that he wasn’t making things up.

“Of course,” said the female guard distractedly.

“Please, come in,” said Vincent, hurriedly moving out of the doorway. This could be nothing but good news. Perhaps the Queensguard wanted to hire him. Perhaps the Queen herself wanted to hire him! Perhaps even the Chemical Society had reneged on their decision, but Vincent was enough of a realist to know that the Society wouldn’t send the Queensguard to grovel on its behalf.

“No, thank you,” said the female guard, eyeing him up and down in obvious distaste. Vincent straightened his overcoat and tried to figure out some way to hide his slippered feet behind him. “This will not take long. I understand you were in the vicinity of Haven Street the night before last?”

“Yes,” said Vincent warily. He was trying to forget Haven Street, with its impressive marble edifices housing a variety of official organizations and officers’ clubs. He had been looking forward to spending more time there, but the disastrous Society meeting had put an end to those dreams.

“Did you by chance see this man?” the woman pulled another piece of paper out from under her cream uniform coat and turned it around to show Vincent a reproduced wood-carving of a thin man with long, straight hair and a medallion around his neck. It was a very bad reproduction, and smeared from the rain, but Vincent recognized the pattern on the medallion immediately, and knew who it was supposed to be.

“That’s the Perritor,” he said.

“Yes,” replied the woman, sounding strangely defensive.

Vincent glanced at the second guard, who had thus far not said a word. The man glared back at him. Vincent turned his attention again to the woman. “So . . . why are you showing me a picture of the Perritor?”

“Have you seen him?” said the woman, sounding outright peevish now.

“Why did I need to see the picture? Why couldn’t you have just said, ‘Mr. Prader, have you seen the Perritor lately?’?”

“Answer the question.” The male guard had finally spoken in a low growl that told Vincent volumes about how angry he was to be out in the rain, knocking on people’s doors and flashing pictures of the most well-known man in the city. If Vincent hadn’t been busy being scared witless, he would have sympathized.

“No,” said Vincent hurriedly. “The last time I saw him was at that speech he gave a few weeks back. You know, the one where he pretended to be sorry about raising taxes . . .”

“Thank you, Mr. Prader. That will be all,” said the female guard, putting both pieces of paper back into her coat pocket. She shifted the umbrella and the male guard performed an entirely non-imposing little shuffle-hop to remain underneath it.

“Wait, what?” said Vincent. “I got out of bed to meet you just so that you could ask me about a public official I don’t even like? What’s going on?”

“That is none of your concern,” said the male guard, now sounding bored.

“We are merely taking precautions,” said the female guard.

“Against what?” said Vincent, aware that his voice was starting to get shrill. “My tendency to oversleep?”

The female guard scowled at him, but the man gave a strange snort that quickly turned into a prolonged and not quite convincing coughing fit when his female colleague leveled her gaze at him instead.

She turned back to Vincent. “We are investigating some rumors. We are sure they mean nothing, but it is the Queen’s will that we question possible witnesses.”

“Witnesses to what?” Now Vincent was entirely confused.

“There have been rumors that the Perritor was kidnapped two nights ago,” said the male guard, who seemed to have gotten over his coughing fit. At the female guard’s angry look, he shrugged. “If we don’t find him everyone’s going to know, anyway.”

Vincent could only look at the two of them aghast. “Kidnapped? Two nights ago? How is that possible? The man has more security than the Queen.”

“Thank you for your help,” said the female guard pointedly, and she deliberately moved the umbrella away from the male guard. The male guard, taking the hint, followed her.

“You lost the Perritor?” Vincent called out at their retreating backs. “And you didn’t even notice for two days?” When it became clear that no more answers were forthcoming, and that the rain was splattering through the doorway and getting the floor wet, Vincent sighed and retreated back into the house.

“Danya, you won’t believe this,” he said, walking into the kitchen, where she was fixing two sandwiches.

“I heard,” she said.

“How does a man with that much security manage to get himself kidnapped? I mean, honestly.”

Danya shrugged, handing him one of the sandwiches and taking a large bite out of the other. “The real question is, was it actually the Perritor that got kidnapped?”

“Don’t talk with your mouth full, darling, it’s disgusting,” said Vincent. “And what do you mean?”

She swallowed. “Everyone knows that the man we see giving the speeches isn’t the real Perritor. He’s far too valuable to be let outside with the public.”

“That’s nothing but a particularly insidious conspiracy theory,” said Vincent dismissively.

Danya put down her sandwich. “I’ll believe it’s true until I find out otherwise,” she said loftily, which was just her way of saying that she couldn’t think of a good comeback at the moment. “The point is, showing everyone pictures of a fake Perritor isn’t going to help them find anyone.”

“It’s just an exercise,” said Vincent. “They couldn’t possibly believe the likes of us have the Perritor stashed away somewhere. If they really did they would have at least searched the house.”

Danya nodded her acquiescence at him. “Point. I suppose the Queen ordered it to make it seem like she actually tried to do something before the news gets out and the public demands answers.”

“Though secretly, of course, the Queen is gloating upon her throne,” said Vincent, warming up to the scenario.

“And she’s sent all her historians to look through the law books, searching for loopholes that would disband Parliament.”

“With the reasoning that our forefathers were prescient enough to realize that if the Perritor is kidnapped, it is certainly a sign that Parliament was never meant to be.” Vincent sighed dramatically.

“If only she could find a law, a writing, anything that said, ‘Hey, maybe you all were right about this monarchy stuff after all.’” Danya gave a wicked grin.

“Well, government is government and I have nothing to do with it,” said Vincent. “I wish her silly quest luck.”

Danya finished her sandwich in two bites. Vincent never ceased to be amazed that a person as slight as she could inhale her food like that. She stood up, brushing crumbs from the front of her shirt, and said, “Well, since this little interruption has ruined my experiments for today, I’ll just go out for awhile.”

Vincent glanced at the kitchen window. Thick drops of water still obscured anything beyond the glass. “It’s raining.”

“And?”

“It’s raining hard, and you said you’d have that salve done yesterday and I still haven’t seen it.”

“I won’t drown,” she replied, “and I sent the salve to Mr. Anders last night. Your half of the payment is in the lab.”

“Where are you going?” Vincent wasn’t sure why he wanted her to stay so badly, but he really didn’t want to spend this miserable day all by himself.

“Did you not hear me say I have money?” she said, feigning concern. “Are you going deaf? It’s all those explosions, isn’t it? I told you your terrible lab technique would catch up to you one day.” Her mouth turned up at the corners.

“Well, try not to spend all of it at once,” he said, softening under her smile. “There’s no telling when we’ll get another order.”

Her smile faded and she looked a little solemn. “I was just joking about that,” she said. “I just have some errands to run, all right?”

“Don’t get too wet,” he said, waving her toward the doorway. He watched her leave the kitchen, and heard the front door open and close. He sighed and finished what was left of his sandwich, then got up to go into the lab. He made sure to keep the door open so that he would hear if anyone else knocked on his door.

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